Systems, methods, and articles of manufacture for virtual display

ABSTRACT

Systems, methods, and articles of manufacture to virtually segment a display are disclosed. A disclosed example system includes a display abstraction component configured to interface, at a kernel level, between an operating system and a graphics processor, the display abstraction component to receive, adapt, and process display calls from the operating system and instruct the graphics processor to divide the display into multiple virtual displays according to a user specified virtual configuration preference to allow the display to replicate a multiple display configuration.

FIELD OF THE DISCLOSURE

This disclosure relates generally to virtual displays and, moreparticularly, to systems, methods, and articles of manufacture forvirtual display segmentation.

BACKGROUND

Radiologists and other clinical users rely upon multi-displayconfigurations for display of images and other clinical data, typicallywhile using multiple applications simultaneously. Virtual displaysystems enable display real estate to be improved in the context ofmultiple applications by segmenting the display into a two-dimensionalarray of several smaller displays. This accomplishes the same effect ofhaving multiple displays while eliminating the need for multiplehardware units.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 illustrates an exemplary virtual display system in accordancewith an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 illustrates a flowchart representative of an example method ofvirtually segmenting a computer display.

FIG. 3 illustrates example results of a virtual display system.

FIG. 4 illustrates an example manner of implementing the example virtualdisplay system of FIG. 1.

FIG. 5 is a schematic illustration of an example processor platform thatmay be used and/or programmed to implement any or all of the disclosedexamples to virtually segment a computer display.

The foregoing summary, as well as the following detailed description ofcertain embodiments of the present invention, will be better understoodwhen read in conjunction with the appended drawings. For the purpose ofillustrating the invention, certain embodiments are shown in thedrawings. It should be understood, however, that the present inventionis not limited to the arrangements and instrumentality shown in theattached drawings.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

Although the following discloses example methods, systems, articles ofmanufacture, and apparatus including, among other components, softwareexecuted on hardware, it should be noted that such methods and apparatusare merely illustrative and should not be considered as limiting. Forexample, it is contemplated that any or all of these hardware andsoftware components could be embodied exclusively in hardware,exclusively in software, exclusively in firmware, or in any combinationof hardware, software, and/or firmware. Accordingly, while the followingdescribes example methods, systems, articles of manufacture, andapparatus, the examples provided are not the only way to implement suchmethods, systems, articles of manufacture, and apparatus.

When any of the appended claims are read to cover a purely softwareand/or firmware implementation, at least one of the elements in an atleast one example is hereby expressly defined to include a tangiblemedium such as a memory, DVD, CD, Blu-ray, etc. storing the softwareand/or firmware.

To increase productivity, workers have historically been given multipledisplays (monitors, for example) to be able to view multipleapplications. In turn, these applications were built to accommodate amulti-display configuration, often each application occupying a separatedisplay thus ensuring co-visibility of the applications indisplay-tiling style. The current trend is to replace a multiple displaysetup with fewer displays with higher resolution and larger dimensionsto reduce the number of hardware units and to eliminate the seamsbetween usable areas of the displays. Certain examples leverage thistrend to provide improved solutions to users.

A computer display work area can be subdivided into smaller areas withdifferent embedded functionality. While tools are available that allow acomputer desktop to be segmented into multiple equal or unequalrectangles through manual designation or by dragging and resizing, thistiling is an incomplete solution because it requires manual adjustment.Furthermore, the tiling is not recognized by the operating system and isoverridden, and, therefore, unreliable, in certain cases.

Certain examples disclosed herein enable a display's real estate to beimproved by virtually segmenting the display into several smallerdisplays, wherein the virtual segmentation is known to the operatingsystem and cannot be overridden by the configuration at the applicationlevel. The virtual configuration is emulated as an array of multipledisplays, arranged in a two-dimensional array which is different fromthe actual physical array of electronic display components that areattached to the video card.

Example systems, methods, and articles of manufacture to virtuallysegment a display are disclosed. A disclosed example method includesvirtually segmenting a computer display to improve physical display realestate by dividing a display into several smaller display, comprisinginstalling a display abstraction component at the kernel, specifying auser configuration preference for the display abstraction component,receiving display calls from the operating system, adapting andprocessing said display calls interpreting the virtual displayconfiguration, and instructing the graphics processor to segment thephysical display according to the virtual display configuration.

A disclosed example article of manufacture includes storingmachine-accessible instructions that, when executed, cause a machine toinstall a display abstraction component at the kernel, specify a userconfiguration preference for the display abstraction component, receivedisplay calls from the operating system, adapt and process said displaycalls to interpret the virtual display configuration, and instruct thegraphics processor to segment the physical display according to thevirtual display configuration.

A disclosed example system comprises a display abstraction componentconfigured to interface, at a kernel level, between an operating systemand a graphics processor, the display abstraction component to receive,adapt, and process display calls from the operating system and instructthe graphics processor to divide the display into multiple virtualdisplays according to a user specified virtual configuration preferenceto allow the display to replicate a multiple display configuration.

FIG. 1 illustrates an example virtual display system 100. The examplevirtual display system 100 of FIG. 1 includes a user interface 110, anapplication layer 120, an operating system 130, a display abstractioncomponent 140, a kernel 150, and a graphics processor 160. To view thesegmented display and to interact with the end-user, the example userinterface 110 of FIG. 1 can resize and display one or more applicationsto improve usage of display real estate beyond tiling, without requiringmanual adjustment by a user. To provide a level of abstraction betweenthe operating system 130 and the user interface 110, the example virtualdisplay system 100 includes an example application layer 120. To processand adapt calls from the operating system 130 and graphics processor160, the example virtual display system 100 includes a displayabstraction component 140. The example display abstraction component 140of FIG. 1 is inserted in communication between the operating system 130and the device driver at the kernel 150, and intercepts communicationmessages in both directions and translates real world coordinates of thephysical display into virtual coordinates and vice versa. Thetranslation is necessary as the display abstraction component 140emulates a virtual configuration of an array of multiple displays,arranged in a two-dimensional array which is different from the actualphysical array of electronic display components that are attached to thevideo card. The virtually constructed array is visible to the operatingsystem 130 while the real configuration is invisible to the operatingsystem 130. The virtually constructed array is configurable as an arrayof virtual displays, each virtual display covering the non-overlappingrectangular area of a single physical display. The operating system 130is aware of and utilizes the virtual display area(s) before theapplication is started, which allows for true segmentation of thedisplay.

Example applications that may benefit from a virtual display systeminclude, but are not limited to, medical imaging applications, mobiledevice applications, Internet applications, education and testingapplications, messaging applications, gaming applications, financialapplications, statistical applications, business enterpriseapplications, office suite applications, product engineeringapplications, video applications, and/or audio applications.

As used herein, the term tangible computer-readable medium is expresslydefined to include any type of computer-readable medium and to expresslyexclude propagating signals. Example computer-readable medium include,but are not limited to, a volatile and/or non-volatile memory, avolatile and/or non-volatile memory device, a compact disc (CD), adigital versatile disc (DVD), a floppy disk, a read-only memory (ROM), arandom-access memory (RAM), a programmable ROM (PROM), anelectronically-programmable ROM (EPROM), an electronically-erasable PROM(EEPROM), an optical storage disk, an optical storage device, magneticstorage disk, a magnetic storage device, a cache, and/or any otherstorage media in which information is stored for any duration (e.g., forextended time periods, permanently, brief instances, for temporarilybuffering, and/or for caching of the information) and which can beaccessed by a processor, a computer and/or other machine having aprocessor, such as the example processor platform P100 discussed belowin connection with FIG. 4. As used herein, the term non-transitorycomputer-readable medium is expressly defined to include any type ofcomputer-readable medium and to exclude propagating signals.

While an example virtual display system 100 is illustrated in FIG. 1,one or more of the elements, processes and/or devices illustrated inFIG. 1 may be combined, divided, re-arranged, omitted, eliminated and/orimplemented in any other way. Further, the example user interface 110,the example application layer 120, the example operating system 130, theexample display abstraction component 140, the example kernel 150,and/or the example graphics processor 160 may be implemented byhardware, software, firmware and/or any combination of hardware,software and/or firmware. Thus, for example, any of example userinterface 110, the example application layer 120, the example operatingsystem 130, the example display abstraction component 140, the examplekernel 150, and/or the example graphics processor 160 could beimplemented by the example processor platform P100 of FIG. 4 and/or oneor more circuit(s), programmable processor(s), application specificintegrated circuit(s) (ASIC(s)), programmable logic device(s) (PLD(s))and/or field programmable logic device(s) (FPLD(s)), field-programmablegate array(s) (FPGA(s)), fuses, etc. When any apparatus claim of thispatent incorporating one or more of these elements is read to cover apurely software and/or firmware implementation, at least one of theexample user interface 110, the example application layer 120, theexample operating system 130, the example display abstraction component140, the example kernel 150, and/or the example graphics processor 160are hereby expressly defined to include a tangible article ofmanufacture such as a tangible computer-readable medium storing thefirmware and/or software. Further still, any of the example userinterface 110, the example application layer 120, the example operatingsystem 130, the example display abstraction component 140, the examplekernel 150, and/or the example graphics processor 160 may include one ormore elements, processes and/or devices in addition to, or instead of,those illustrated in FIG. 1, and/or may include more than one of any orall of the illustrated elements, processes and devices.

FIG. 4 illustrates an example virtual display system 400 situatedbetween an operating system and a graphics processor to configure one ormore physical displays according to a virtual display layout.

To install a display abstraction component (e.g., the example displayabstraction component 140), the example virtual display system 400 ofFIG. 4 includes an abstraction component installer 410. The abstractioncomponent installer 410 of FIG. 4 is executed to place a displayabstraction layer or component (such as the example display abstractioncomponent 140 shown in FIG. 1) at a kernel level (e.g., at the examplekernel 150 shown in FIG. 1). To specify how the multiple displays are tobe configured, the example virtual display system 400 of FIG. 4 includesa configuration preference specifier 420. The configuration preferencespecifier 420 of FIG. 4 indicates to the display component abstracter425 what the improved display configuration should be based on theuser's workload and application setup and profile.

To communicate with the operating system (e.g., the example operatingsystem 160 shown in FIG. 1), the example virtual display system 400 ofFIG. 4 includes any number and/or type(s) of operating systeminterface(s) 407. Using any number and/or type(s) of message(s),protocol(s), interface(s), method(s), logic and/or applicationprogramming interface(s), the example operating system interface 407 ofFIG. 4 enables a display component abstracter 425 to intercept messagesfrom the operating system in order to process and adapt the virtualconfiguration.

To communicate with the graphics processor (e.g., the example graphicsprocessor 130 of FIG. 1), the example virtual display system 400 of FIG.4 includes a graphics processor interface 427. Using any number and/ortype(s) of message(s), protocol(s), interface(s), method(s), logicand/or application programming interface(s), the graphics processorinterface 427 of FIG. 4 enables the display component abstracter 425 toinstruct the graphics processor to display according to the virtualconfiguration.

To enable the multiple display configuration, the example virtualdisplay system 400 of FIG. 4 includes a display component abstracter425. The display component abstracter 425 intercepts communicationmessages in both directions, from both the operating system and thegraphics processor, and translates real world coordinates into virtualcoordinates and vice versa.

While a manner of implementing the example virtual display system 400 isillustrated in FIG. 4, one or more of the elements, processes and/ordevices illustrated in FIG. 4 may be combined, divided, re-arranged,omitted, eliminated and/or implemented in any other way. Further, theexample operating system interface 407, the example abstractioncomponent installer 410, the example configuration preference specifier420, the example display component abstracter 425, the example graphicalprocessing unit interface 427 and/or, more generally, the examplevirtual display system 400 may be implemented by hardware, software,firmware and/or any combination of hardware, software and/or firmware.Thus, for example, any of the example operating system interface 407,the example abstraction component installer 410, the exampleconfiguration preference specifier 420, the example display componentabstracter 425, the example graphical processing unit interface 427and/or, more generally, the example virtual display system 400 could beimplemented by the example processor platform P100 of FIG. 5 and/or oneor more circuit(s), programmable processor(s), application specificintegrated circuit(s) ASIC(s), PLD(s) and/or FPLD(s), FPGA(s), fuses,etc. When any apparatus claim of this patent incorporating one or moreof these elements is read to cover a purely software and/or firmwareimplementation, at least one of the example operating system interface407, the example abstraction component installer 410, the exampleconfiguration preference specifier 420, the example display componentabstracter 425, the example graphical processing unit interface 427and/or, more generally, the example virtual display system 100 arehereby expressly defined to include a tangible article of manufacturesuch as a tangible computer-readable medium storing the firmware and/orsoftware. Further still, the example virtual display system 400 mayinclude one or more elements, processes and/or devices in addition to,or instead of, those illustrated in FIG. 4, and/or may include more thanone of any or all of the illustrated elements, processes and devices.

FIG. 2 is a flowchart representing an example process that may beembodied as machine-accessible instructions and executed by, forexample, one or more processors to configure a virtual display. Aprocessor, a controller and/or any other suitable processing device maybe used, configured and/or programmed to perform the example processesof FIG. 2. For example, the process of FIG. 2 may be embodied in codedinstructions stored on a tangible computer-readable medium.Machine-readable instructions comprise, for example, instructions thatcause a processor, a computer and/or a machine having a processor toperform one or more particular processes. Alternatively, some or all ofthe components of the example process of FIG. 2 may be implemented usingany combination(s) of ASIC(s), PLD(s), FPLD(s), FPGA(s), fuses, discretelogic, hardware, firmware, etc. Also, some or all of the components ofthe example process of FIG. 2 may be implemented manually or as anycombination of any of the foregoing techniques, for example, anycombination of firmware, software, discrete logic and/or hardware.Further, many other methods of implementing the example operations ofFIG. 2 may be employed. For example, the order of execution of theblocks may be changed, and/or one or more of the blocks described may bechanged, eliminated, sub-divided, or combined. Additionally, the blocksof any or all of the components of the example process of FIG. 2 may becarried out sequentially and/or carried out in parallel by, for example,separate processing threads, processors, devices, discrete logic,circuits, etc.

The example process of FIG. 2 begins with a display abstractioncomponent being installed at the kernel (block 210) by the abstractioncomponent installer 410. This is so that user cases of application spacemanagement supported by the operating system (e.g., resizing,background/foreground operations, etc.) are automatically aligned withinthe configured virtual display area, for example. The process of FIG. 2specifies a user configuration preference for the component (block 220)by the configuration preference specifier 420. Doing this will cause thevirtual display areas to be known to the operating system and enumeratedand used before an application is started. The configuration preferencecan be specified in any number of ways, such that any number ofrectangular displays of any size can potentially be the end result ofthe virtual display. When an application is launched (block 230) thevirtual displays are already known to the operating system. Thus, whenan application is launched (block 230), display calls are received fromthe operating system (block 240) by the display configurationabstraction component 140 and processed to interpret the virtual displayconfiguration (block 250). Implementation of this portion of the processis achieved using the display component abstracter 425, for example.During the process shown in FIG. 2, the display abstraction componentinstructs the GPU to display according to the virtual configuration(block 260).

The example process of FIG. 2 can also include testing of multipledisplay configurations on a single display, fine tuning of applicationusability for different display configurations, application smartorganizing and context management linking, emulation of grayscale,color, and tint, as well as color calibration of displays uniformlybetween displays.

FIG. 3 illustrates example results of a virtual display system 100. Theoriginal display 310 can be segmented any number of ways. The quadsegmentation 330 results in four equally sized displays 332, 334, 336,338 whereas the dual segmentation 320 results in two equally sizeddisplays 322, 324. The virtual display system 100 can accommodate largerdisplays as well, such as a large original display 340. Additionally,the displays can be segmented into smaller displays of equal or unequalsize. In FIG. 3, the large display 340 has been segmented into threesmaller displays 352, 354, 356 of unequal size.

FIG. 5 is a block diagram of an example processor platform P100 capableof executing the example process of FIG. 2 to virtually segment adisplay into a two-dimensional array of multiple displays. The exampleprocessor platform P100 can be, for example, a computer, a workstation,a server and/or any other type of computing device containing aprocessor.

The processor platform P100 of the instant example includes at least oneprogrammable processor P105. For example, the processor P105 can beimplemented by one or more Intel® microprocessors from the Pentium®family, the Itanium® family or the XScale® family. Of course, otherprocessors from other processor families and/or manufacturers are alsoappropriate. The processor P105 executes coded instructions P110 and/orP112 present in main memory of the processor P105 (e.g., within avolatile memory P115 and/or a non-volatile memory P120) and/or in astorage device P150. The processor P105 may execute, among other things,the example machine-accessible instructions of FIG. 2 to virtuallysegment a display into a two-dimensional array of multiple displays.Thus, the coded instructions P110, P112 may include the exampleinstructions of FIG. 2.

The processor P105 is in communication with the main memory includingthe non-volatile memory P110 and the volatile memory P115, and thestorage device P150 via a bus P125. The volatile memory P115 may beimplemented by Synchronous Dynamic Random Access Memory (SDRAM), DynamicRandom Access Memory (DRAM), RAMBUS Dynamic Random Access Memory (RDRAM)and/or any other type of RAM device. The non-volatile memory P110 may beimplemented by flash memory and/or any other desired type of memorydevice. Access to the memory P115 and the memory P120 may be controlledby a memory controller.

The processor platform P100 also includes an interface circuit P130. Anytype of interface standard, such as an external memory interface, serialport, general-purpose input/output, as an Ethernet interface, auniversal serial bus (USB), and/or a PCI express interface, etc, mayimplement the interface circuit P130.

The interface circuit P130 may also includes one or more communicationdevice(s) P112 such as a network interface card to facilitate exchangeof data, packets, and/or routing information with other nodes, servers,devices and/or routers of a network.

In some examples, the processor platform P100 also includes one or moremass storage devices P150 to store software and/or data. Examples ofsuch storage devices P150 include a floppy disk drive, a hard diskdrive, a solid-state hard disk drive, a CD drive, a DVD drive and/or anyother solid-state, magnetic and/or optical storage device. The examplestorage devices P150 may be used to, for example, store the examplecoded instructions of FIG. 2 and/or the display component abstracter 425of FIG. 4.

Thus, certain examples provide a way to virtually segment a display intoan array of multiple displays, thereby improving physical display realestate and reducing the amount of unused seams between displays whileeliminating the need for more hardware units. The segmentation of thedisplay is based on end-users' workflow and profile and is independentof any particular application. The examples described herein segment adisplay such that the segmented virtual configuration is known andvisible at the operating system level while the real configuration isnot known to the operating system. Thus, the virtual display does notrequire manual intervention. Moreover, the virtual display can be easilyimplemented through the use of an abstraction component at the kernel,which receives, processes, and adapts instructions from the kernel anddirects a graphics processor to segment the display based on a userspecified configuration.

Although certain example methods, apparatus and articles of manufacturehave been described herein, the scope of coverage of this patent is notlimited thereto. On the contrary, this patent covers all systems,methods, apparatus and articles of manufacture fairly falling within thescope of the claims of this patent.

1. A virtual display segmentation system comprising: a displayabstraction component configured to interface, at a kernel level,between an operating system and a graphics processor, the displayabstraction component to receive, adapt, and process display calls fromthe operating system and instruct the graphics processor to divide thedisplay into multiple virtual displays according to a user specifiedvirtual configuration preference to allow the display to replicate amultiple display configuration.
 2. The system of claim 1, wherein thedisplay abstraction component is loaded by the operating system uponinitialization.
 3. The system of claim 1, wherein the multiple virtualdisplay configuration takes precedence over the real displayconfiguration at the operating system level, rendering the real displayconfiguration opaque to the operating system.
 4. The system of claim 1,wherein the display abstraction component intercepts communicationmessages from both the operating system and graphics processor andtranslates real world coordinates into virtual coordinates and viceversa to enable the proper display configuration.
 5. The system of claim1, wherein the display abstraction component segments the display intoan array of multiple displays, arranged in a two dimensional arraydifferent from the actual physical array of electronic displaycomponents that are attached to a video card.
 6. The system of claim 1,wherein implementation is achieved by installing a display abstractioncomponent plug into the communication line between the operating systemand a display driver.
 7. The system of claim 1, wherein the virtualdisplay configurations can be saved and loaded at the operating systemlevel.
 8. The system of claim 1, wherein the virtual displays areconfigured automatically and in real time when an application islaunched.
 9. The system of claim 1, wherein the virtual displayconfiguration setup depends on the users end workflow.
 10. The system ofclaim 1, wherein the virtual display configuration is enabled such thatit can be used with various hardware solutions.
 11. The system of claim1, wherein a resolution is defined by the display abstraction componentfor each segmented display area.
 12. The system of claim 1, wherein thesystem can accommodate more displays than a digital developmentprocessing algorithm (ddp) was expecting to allow the ddp to work withmore virtual displays than physical displays.
 13. The system of claim 1,wherein the virtual display configuration is enumerated and used beforean application is started.
 14. A method of virtually segmenting acomputer display to improve physical display real estate by dividing adisplay into several smaller displays, comprising: installing a displayabstraction component at the kernel; and specifying a user configurationpreference for the display abstraction component; and receiving displaycalls from the operating system; and adapting and processing saiddisplay calls interpreting the virtual display configuration; andinstructing the graphics processor to segment the physical displayaccording to the virtual display configuration.
 15. The method of claim14, further comprising fine tuning of application usability fordifferent display configurations.
 16. The method of claim 14, furthercomprising smart application organizing and context management linking.17. The method of claim 14, further comprising emulating of grayscale,color, and tint of the segmented virtual display.
 18. The method ofclaim 14, further comprising color calibrating of the display uniformlybetween displays.
 19. A computer readable storage medium including a setof instructions for a computer that improve physical display real estateby dividing a display into several smaller displays, said instructionsincluding routines to: install a display abstraction component at thekernel; and specify a user configuration preference for the displayabstraction component; and receive display calls from the operatingsystem; and adapt and process said display calls to interpret thevirtual display configuration; and instruct the graphics processor tosegment the physical display according to the virtual displayconfiguration.
 20. The computer readable storage medium of claim 21,further comprising instructions to fine tune application usability fordifferent display configurations.
 21. The computer readable storagemedium of claim 21, further comprising instructions for smartapplication organizing and context management linking.
 22. The computerreadable storage medium of claim 21, further comprising instructions foremulating of grayscale, color, and tint of the segmented display. 23.The computer readable storage medium of claim 21, further comprisinginstructions for color calibrating of the display uniformly betweendisplays.